In A Witch's Wardrobe

by Juliet Blackwell

  I checked my vintage Tinker Bell watch, whose hands glowed green in the darkness. It had been five minutes. Surely the guard would have to return to his post soon?

  I was as antsy as Sailor. Not only because I wanted to hear what Miriam had to say, but because… standing this close to Sailor was unnerving. There was something about him… As my mother used to say, I could eat him up with a spoon.

  It must be pheromones, I thought. I had romance on the brain lately—every male I ran into was looking good to me.

  Get a grip, Lily.

  In order to distract myself, I tried to make out the jumbled contents crowding the closet behind us.

  “What is all this stuff, do you suppose?” I whispered.

  “Leftover props, I imagine. Or stuff they shoved in here decades ago and forgot about.”

  “Is that a Victrola behind you?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “Huh.”

  So much for that conversational gambit. The guard was still chatting and so involved in his conversation, I imagined he wouldn’t notice if we spoke in regular voices, but caution nonetheless seemed advisable. I blew out a breath, checked my watch again, and tapped my foot. Anything to distract me from the impatient man sharing this cramped space.

  “Feeling anything yet?” I whispered after another few moments.

  Sailor shifted a little closer, until his thighs were touching mine. “Mmm-hmmm,” he murmured.

  “Sailor!”

  “It’s not my fault. You’re a woman, I’m a man, and this is a very small nook.”

  “I meant, did you feel any spirits yet?”

  “You have to be more spec—”

  “Sssh.” I heard steps approach, then pass by, and realized I no longer heard the guard speaking on the phone. The slam of a door reverberated through the silence.

  I peeked though a gap in the curtains. As I’d hoped, the security guard had left.

  Slowly, we emerged from our hiding place. The dim golden light cast by the sconces made the theater’s plush red velvets and sumptuous gold and silver gilt seem oppressive, even sinister. The intricate plaster decorations were not meant to be paired with a tomblike silence. All old buildings retain energy traces of what has gone before, but this was ridiculous. The theater felt as though it was itself generating ghostly chatter, eerie music, and ethereal energy.

  The back of my neck prickled, and I chided myself for letting my imagination run away with me. But I stroked my medicine bag, just in case.

  “Let’s go,” I said to Sailor, who was watching me with a trace of amusement. I started to lead the way up one aisle toward the rear of the theater.

  “Good,” said Sailor as he joined me. “For a moment there I thought you were going to ask me to take that old Victrola with us.”

  “Why would I want a Victrola?” I stopped and looked at him.

  “To backmask. What’ve you got, a small device? Or are you fluent?”

  “I don’t… I don’t understand anything you’re saying,” I said, feeling a sense of déjà vu. Why was I having trouble understanding people lately? First Miriam, then Sailor…

  “You said you needed to speak to Miriam.”

  “I said I needed to communicate with her. The speaking part doesn’t seem to be working. It’s garbled.”

  “You mean reversed.”

  “Reversed?”

  “She’s in the mirror world. Everything she says is reversed. You’re saying you don’t understand backward talk?”

  “Apparently not.”

  He shook his head. “And you call yourself a witch. Aleister Crowley, the man some call the father of American witchcraft, advocated learning to backmask to all his disciples.”

  I blew out an exasperated breath. There was so very much to learn.

  “So you’re saying you didn’t bring a recording device of any kind? Something you could play backward afterward?”

  “It never occurred to me.”

  Sailor went back into the little closet and rooted around. He handed me a disc that had grooves on only one side; the other was smooth. Then he hoisted up the heavy-looking Victrola and held it awkwardly, the horn blocking part of his sight.

  “Can’t believe I’m doing this,” he muttered as he walked unsteadily up the aisle. “But then, what did I expect? Following a crazy witch into dark theaters at night…”

  “What exactly are we doing?” I asked as I scooted along after him, record in hand.

  “Old Victrolas record as well as play. My aunt has one, plays it backward to scare the hell out of her clients.”

  “Really?” I remembered the story Carlos told me, of the DOM members who claimed records held secret messages. Perhaps they weren’t quite as wacky as I’d thought.

  We passed through a set of doors at the back of the main theater and emerged on the second-floor landing. A sweeping stairway led down to the grand lobby; from there a smaller set of steps led to the ground floor and the ladies’ lounge. I hesitated.

  “What about the security guard?” I asked.

  “Don’t worry—he’s back in his post at the ticket booth.”

  Before letting ourselves in tonight, Sailor and I had waited outside the theater for a long time, watching. There seemed to be only one guard, and he did his rounds at the top of the hour, then returned to sit in the ticket booth out front.

  In fact, Sailor had seemed so sure of his ability to case the joint that it made me a little suspicious. He told me once he used to study architecture, but an interest in home design didn’t preclude a career in, say, thievery.

  “How about now?” I whispered, mostly just to hear my own voice. I yearned to drown out the sounds and sensations swirling about me. “Feel anything?”

  “I’m feeling all sorts of things. This place is lousy with spirits. All those souls coming and going over all those years? Besides, theatrical types are good at projecting. They tend to hang around whether they died in the building or elsewhere.”

  “People died here?”

  “It’s an old building. Lily. Over the years, yes, people have died here. Surely you can feel it.”

  “I’m all jangly. There… there are too many sensations.”

  “Like I said, it’s jammed in here.” He shook his head and let out a mirthless chuckle. “These folks never want to leave.”

  “Really? You mean they stay here on purpose?”

  “A bunch of hammy actors with all of eternity to strut upon the stage? Why would they leave?”

  We arrived at the grand lobby with its soaring green sculptures, moving quickly in case anyone was looking through the front doors.

  “Are the ghosts tormented?”

  “More like they torment each other.”

  “I thought ghosts stuck around because they were unhappy.” I led the way down the hall to the final flight of stairs, which would take us to the ladies’ lounge, where, I presumed, Miriam was waiting.

  “Not always. Sometimes they’re content to hang out for a while. From what I can tell, time doesn’t pass the same way in the next dimension. A century might seem like a single afternoon. Ghosts live very much in the present.”

  “Zen ghosts?”

  “Zen drama queens, maybe. Anyway, they’re everywhere.”

  I shuddered. I couldn’t “see” ghosts, but I often sensed them as one felt cool air on a hot day, passing over one’s skin with a shivery rush, filling me with angst or fear or hope. And I seemed to attract them, like my own spectral entourage.

  We hurried down the last flight of stairs. As always when I’m with Sailor, I felt a strong kinship. Sailor seemed to be as awkward navigating his way through the world as I was, and though our talents were very different, we complemented each other. Too bad he didn’t seem to like anybody… including me.

  We paused at the doorway to the ladies’ lounge. There were no lights on in the outer lounge, but sconces from the marble-tiled lavatory beyond cast a subtle yellow glow. The room was just as I’d remembered it: ringe
d with gold-framed mirrors, with little metal chairs and a shallow shelf inviting women to sit and attend to their makeup. A crystal-and-mirror chandelier hung from the ceiling, and the deep red carpet gave the room a sumptuous feeling.

  “Are all ladies’ rooms this nice?” Sailor asked, looking impressed.

  “Sure,” I teased. “Aren’t men’s rooms?”

  “Not really, no.”

  “Do you sense Miriam?”

  “No, but since I have no idea who she is, I’m not sure I would know if she were reaching out among this crowd.” He blew out a breath. “Let’s get this over with.”

  Sailor set the record on the turntable, smooth side up. He then started up the machine and set the needle down on the disc.

  I extracted a jar of the brew I made last night and drew a circle around us.

  Sailor and I sat cross-legged within the circle, facing each other. We had done this once before, used our combined energies to tease out a ghost from a demon. At least this time we weren’t dealing with demons.

  But in some ways, the stakes were higher—the fate of a young mother was in our hands. I thought of Luna’s reluctant smile, the way she tucked her golden head under my chin. Every maternal instinct I would have sworn I didn’t have surged up, urging me on.

  Luna needed her mother. We had to figure out a way to help Miriam, get her to tell us who had cast the spell on her.

  “When I go into the trance,” said Sailor, “call to Miriam with all the strength of your mind. I’ll be doing the same, but since you’ve met her… she’s more likely to come to a familiar voice.”

  We held our arms out in front of us, horizontal to the floor, one palm facing up, one palm facing down, my hand on his, his hand on mine.

  Sailor rolled his shoulders, exhaled, dropped his head back until he faced the ceiling. After a few moments, I saw his eyes roll slightly in his head. I concentrated on allowing myself to be a conduit for the powers of my ancestors, sharing my energy with Sailor, feeling it pass from my cold fingers to his warm ones. The heat built, our palms itching and burning, as our powers merged and blended.

  I called out to Miriam with my mind. Not knowing how much she might sense, I kept the picture of Luna in my head, hoping she would be able to see it and be motivated by it to appear.

  After a moment, I could have sworn I heard far-off music surging and waning. It was a male tenor, backed by a Jazz Age orchestra. It reminded me of being here with Aidan the night of the Art Deco Ball.

  I opened my eyes and searched the mirrors, waiting.

  Finally, Miriam flickered in the mirrored chandelier high above us. Then disappeared.

  Sailor’s head whipped from side to side, then stilled.

  That ethereal, barely there music grew louder.

  I glanced in the full gold-framed wall mirror, and there she was, as clear as though she were standing in the room, looking at herself in the glass.

  She raised her hand, placing her palm to the mirror, holding my gaze. Her hazel eyes shone bright, her color high, flushed. She licked at her chapped lips.

  “Ohs eetsirth. Pleh eeem,” Miriam whispered. Then louder, she repeated: “Pleh eeem!”

  Help me. I finally got that part. I strained to understand her, but as before, the words seemed foreign. She kept talking, faster now, but though I concentrated, trying to connect with her on other levels, it was no use. The babbling continued, and she banged on the mirror in frustration, her palms flat against the surface of the glass, trying to break through, to break free.

  I pulled away from Sailor so I could hold my hands up to the mirror, my palms to hers. If only we could make physical contact, then surely I could communicate with her on a different level.

  But the moment I pulled free of Sailor’s grasp, he came out of the trance.

  Miriam flickered, looking about as though in fear, and faded away. Her handprints were the last to leave, their foggy trace slowly evaporating from the surface of the mirror.

  Something grabbed at the top of my head, pulling my hair. I felt something else skitter up one leg and the sound of rodents scratching overhead.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here,” said Sailor. “Run!”

  Chapter 17

  I grabbed the disc from the Victrola as Sailor took my hand, yanking me out of the lounge and down the hallway toward the green glow of an EXIT sign. As we ran, the lights blinked and went out, casting us into pitch-darkness.

  “This way!” he yelled.

  I could sense Sailor next to me, but not see him as we stumbled along in the darkness.

  An ice-cold blast slammed into me from behind, and something yanked my hair again.

  The noise around us grew in intensity, until it sounded like a freight train rumbling through the basement corridors of the theater.

  “What is going on?” I yelled.

  “Apparently we woke something up,” Sailor replied.

  “You think?” Something pinched my arm. “Ow!”

  “You okay?”

  “So far. What do you think it is?”

  “Something not good. Something really not good.”

  “I’m getting that feeling.”

  “Now’d be the time to be proactive, Lily.”

  “I’ll try,” I said, and grabbed my medicine bag. I started to chant, which proved difficult to do while running. We were in the bowels of the theater now, running toward EXIT signs that disappeared whenever we neared.

  Something snagged my hair, and I felt another ice-cold hand on my shoulder. As I ducked and pulled away, I heard the laughter of ghosts—not real, human laughter, but a chilly undercurrent of perceptible not-noise. I flashed on a sudden memory of being in second grade, accidentally making my diorama of the American West come to life. The other children were laughing at me, picking on me, teasing and making fun of me until I burst into tears and ran away to hide.

  I was no longer seven years old, and I was no longer powerless. The ghostly bullies weren’t going to push us around.

  I yanked away from Sailor and stopped, standing stock-still.

  “Lily! What are you doing?”

  “Trust me,” I said calmly. Ignoring the spirits that surrounded me, wanting, needing, clutching at my clothes and hair, laughing and jeering, I took a deep breath, held up my right hand, and envisioned power flowing through the top of my head, down through my body to the tips of my toes, and out my right hand.

  “What is dark be filled with light; remove these spirits from my sight.”

  An orangey red glow emanated from the palm of my right hand, dispelling the ghosts and illuminating a panting, frowning Sailor.

  He looked me up and down. “You couldn’t have done that earlier, maybe?”

  “I didn’t think of it.”

  “Some master witch you are.”

  “Hey, you were the one who started running and dragging me along. I’m surprised you didn’t start screaming like a little girl.”

  “A few more minutes of those ghosts and I probably would have.”

  “Besides, it’s not like a magical flashlight, you know. It takes effort. Hold on. Speaking of magical flashlights, we left the Hand of Glory with my other things in the ladies’ lounge. We have to go back.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  “Wait here for me, then. I’ll be right back.”

  “You’ll do no such thing, Lily. Dammit, you might not be able to feel it, but those things are building in strength. They’re—”

  The light from my palm dimmed, remaining bright enough to see only the bare outlines of objects.

  “What the hell just happened?” asked Sailor.

  “I don’t know. This has never happened before.”

  “That seems… bad.”

  “Yep.”

  The word had no sooner left my mouth than the spirits descended on us once more, swirling and jabbing, the laughing and moaning and shrieking all the more unnerving for being just barely perceptible. And now I was seeing things, too
: lights and mist and barely there faces; eyes and mouths distorted by theatrical greasepaint, as a chorus of music whirled about us.

  Sailor tried to shield me from them by placing himself in front of me, holding his arms out and slightly back in a protective gesture. Something grabbed him by the front of his shirt, dragged him, and tossed him into a corner like a rag doll. He landed with a thud and a grunt.

  “Sailor!”

  I stumbled toward him, but something kept getting in my way, keeping me from reaching him. It was nightmarish: I felt like I was moving, but never got nearer to him. Finally I stopped, let the light from my hand die out completely, put my head down, and gave my all to concentrating. I mumbled a potent incantation I remembered my grandmother Graciela using years ago, when she was fighting my father face-to-face. I recited the words exactly as she had taught me: in a smattering of English, Spanish, and Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs.

  Once again I held my hand up and out away from my body. I twirled around, focusing my anger on blasting my energy at… whatever it was all around me.

  An arm settled on my shoulders, and in my fury I almost unleashed my energy on it. I stopped myself in the nick of time: It was Sailor.

  He urged me down the hall toward the door we had seen earlier. We ran up a short flight of stairs and felt our way along a hall. I didn’t dare look behind us, but whatever it was seemed to let us go. Finally we emerged onto the landing overlooking the grand lobby, which was lit by amber sconces.

  We stopped short. There, laid out before us, was a grand party reminiscent of the Art Deco Ball, but with more authentic clothing.

  Had I not been so freaked out, I might have enjoyed the novel experience of actually seeing ghosts. As it was, I clutched Sailor’s hand and savored the warmth and strength of the arm around my shoulders.

  “Keep chanting,” he mumbled in my ear.

  We started down the sweeping stairs as if we were just another pair of partygoers. The music played; couples danced. If it weren’t for the fact that they were transparent when backlit, it would be hard to tell that they were spirits. Had we slipped into another dimension?

  I continued stroking my bag and chanting for all I was worth.